Are you sure you are not attacking a strawman/nut picking?

This is certainly a valid concern. I have mostly only anecdotal evidence based on my personal experience, but I've seen these views held by a large number of people, even otherwise intelligent people. For example, a geography professor I know was feeling sure that Galilei was burned at the stake. Another point which hints me strongly is that I've even heard this view from committed Catholics who were ashamed by what their church did in the past.

Also, I linked an article (http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/533/copernicus-galileo-and-the-church-science-in-a-religious-world) which is a proponent of this view, and I've seen this argument coming up plenty of times in discussions about arguments against theism.

However, I don't have any real studies about the percentage of people who hold this view. This is why I also included a poll, and based on the results, there are some people here (who I think are well-read and intelligent, otherwise they would not be visiting this site much less paying attention to the articles) who do or did have such views.

Before Newton unified terrestial and celestial mechanics, you needed to keep them separate whether you were using a geocentric or a heliocentric model. You still needed a sublunary sphere sphere around the Earth where things slow down and fall and break and decay on their way towards the End of Time, while God and the Angels watch us from their perfect and immutable Heaven.

If I remember Aristotle well, he did propose two fundamental kinds of motion, a linear and a circular one. So far as I know, Aristotle wasn't a monotheist, and the Greek gods were not described as omnipotent. However, my knowledge here is limited, I would need to read more from Aristotle to be capable of discussing this topic further.